


the colour at his fingertips

by otherhippo (hippopotamus)



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M, but no one really knows how magic works in this universe, least of all the author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 07:23:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18069071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippopotamus/pseuds/otherhippo
Summary: eliott doesn't know how to hide it anymore. his magic just gets excited around lucas





	the colour at his fingertips

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is brought to you by the "rino, please stop writing magic aus" foundation  
> enjoy!

Eliott doesn't really know how to keep it hidden anymore. The blue on his hands and the pens that move of their own accord don’t lend themselves to being disguised.

He was getting good at controlling it, before Lucas. Getting good at keeping the objects around him as they should be, the colours on his fingertips a normal pink.

His magic just seems to get excited around Lucas, though. He doesn't know why it's these things that change around him, why all his pens seem to dance across paper the minute Lucas appears into his line of sight. But he can't help it. 

One of his pens chooses this moment to helpfully stand and write  _ you're in LOVE _ across the page that he was trying to use for his homework. 

And it's not that it's not true, but  _ jesus, _ it’s a little overdramatic for a monday morning. Lucas isn't even close by, just standing with his friends across the schoolyard, smiling, laughing, punching his friend in the arm. Eliott swipes the pen from where it's starting to outline the words in a heart and mutters “I  _ will _ fucking snap you in half.”

The pen finally behaves like a pen, and falls when he drops it. He quickly scans his eyes over the paper, tracing the words with his fingers, and lifts the ink away before anyone sees.

He glances back up, back over to Lucas, who catches his eye with a smile and a tiny wave, and all four of his pens, blue, green, red, and black, stand up and use the entirety of his homework to messily sketch a picture of Lucas. 

“Fucking  _ hell.” _ Eliott curses, snatching the paper away and stuffing the pens into his bag as quickly as possible, noticing the colour at his fingertips as he does and sighing loudly.

Lucas has looked away when Eliott manages to look back. 

It's probably for the best. 

*

They aren't even friends, which is the worst part of it all. Eliott barely even knows Lucas, only going the same route home sometimes, having a single conversation at the bus stop, and since then just exchanging a passing greeting in the hallway, a smile across the room. 

Eliott is gone, though. Really and truly gone for Lucas, head over heels, fallen and can't get up,  _ gone.  _

It's just something in his smile. The way his name sounds from Lucas’s mouth when he says  _ hi, Eliott _ , with a soft gaze that feels like more than it is.

It's something in the tips of his fingers, tingling with a blue glow, like he could create sparks with the energy he gets from Lucas. 

He plunges his hands deep into his pockets, and checks his reflection in a window to make sure there's nothing else showing, before walking towards his first lesson of the day.

It’s a small mercy that he’s in the year above Lucas. None of their classes are the same, and he manages to actually concentrate on subduing the glow at his fingertips, while taking in some of the lesson at the same time. His pens occasionally jump a little when Lucas crosses his mind, but aside from a few strange looks from Alex, it’s not that big of a deal.

He just didn’t realise that Lucas was in the classroom next door. 

The lesson ends, and he walks out the door at the same time as him. 

He was trying to hold a casual conversation with Alex, about nothing in particular, while he tries to put his books away in his bag as he walks, but he glances up and spots Lucas, and his fingertips glow bright blue before he can hide them in his pockets. 

“Shit,” he mutters, wide eyes catching Lucas’s while there's a chorus of “woahs” around him.  _ “Shit.” _

He darts back into the now empty classroom, folding his arms into himself to hide his hands before screwing his eyes shut and breathing deeply, trying to regain control. Everything in his bag is jostling around, trying to jump out and humiliate him further, even when he shoves his book inside and zips everything away, he can feel it all trying to move around. 

“Eliott?”

Why did it have to be  _ that  _ voice?

“Hey, Lucas,” he attempts nonchalance as he turns, his hands behind his back pinning his bag down on the table, out of view of Lucas. “What's up?”

Lucas raises his eyebrows. “You're asking  _ me _ that?”

Eliott attempts a shrug and an innocent smile.

“Okay,” Lucas seems like he's making a big effort not to roll his eyes. “Well, you know you're not the only one at this school, right? I know you're new, but…” he tails off. “If there's something making you lose control of - something, there's like… help.”

“Control?” Eliott still feels the need to keep up the act. “Over what? I'm fine?”

Lucas sighs, with a small smile, then shakes his head. “Okay,” he says after a while. “I'll leave you alone. See you around.”

He turns, and Eliott looks down, wishing he had the courage to stop him. In doing so, he notices the footprints that Lucas is leaving, glowing faintly orange which fades through green, then purple, then disappears. 

“Oh, fuck,” Lucas mutters when he notices. “Fuck’s sake.”

He glances back at Eliott before slumping down into the nearest chair and kicking his feet into the leg of the table as if it'll stop them glowing. 

Eliott relaxes his tense hold on his bag, and brings his hands, still faintly glowing, in front of him, to where Lucas can see them. 

“So - you too, huh?” Eliott asks.

Lucas presses his lips together and gives a guilty nod. “I'm usually good at controlling it,” he explains. “I swear, I mean, I just-”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Well yeah, but you've just started a new school. It makes sense for you to slip-”

“I don't think it's that,” Eliott says quietly, regretting it immediately as he says it. “I mean, I've been here three weeks now. I think I just didn't get enough sleep last night or something.”

“Yeah,” Lucas nods. “It's probably the same for me.”

“I-”

“You know they put a mattress in the foyer? For students to relax?”

“What?” Eliott says. “There's no way that no one's gonna fuck in there.”

“That's what I said,” Lucas grins. “But it's there, anyway. Just saying, if you need a nap, maybe you should go there.”

There's an uncomfortable silence. Eliott wants to fill it with  _ why don't we go together _ , but it'd definitely come across weird, although he swears he only wants to say it because Lucas said he was tired too. 

“You know where the foyer is, right?” Lucas asks, and - of course Eliott knows where the foyer is, it's almost the first room anyone sees as they walk in, but - there's an opportunity.

“Not really,” he lies. “Or - is it that one next to the stairs?”

It's nowhere near the stairs. Lucas shakes his head, then stands. 

“No, come on, I'll show you.”

Eliott notices something in Lucas's bag move when he catches up to him, knocking his shoulder into Lucas’s.

The corridors are empty by now, the next lesson having started already, and Lucas leads Eliott down the halls to the mercifully empty foyer.

“See? Told you,” Lucas says triumphantly. “Bed. You can catch up on your sleep while there's no one here.”

“So could you,” Eliott suggests in a moment of bravery. “There's room for two.”

“Me?” Lucas asks. “Oh, I have to get to class, I-”

He takes an unsteady step backward, and the footprint he leaves behind is blinding bright, blue to match Eliott’s fingertips which haven’t faded one bit since he ran into Lucas outside the classroom.

“Class started, like, ten minutes ago,” Eliott smiles. ”But it’s up to you,” he shrugs, then throws his bag down on the floor and dives onto the bed, landing on his back with a tired huff and a grin. He looks down at his hands for a second, before glancing back at the footprint still on the floor. The  _ exact  _ same colour.

Lucas shuffles his feet for a moment, revealing more of the same blue, and, when he kicks the floor, scattering it across the room towards Eliott. 

Eliott sits up, and catches Lucas’s eye before allowing the glow to extend down from his fingertips, and meet the glow from Lucas’s footprint. 

He flicks one eyebrow up, as if to say  _ your move, _ and then lies back down, curling onto his side, facing towards where someone else would lay, if there were two in the bed. 

He exhales loudly. “Well, goodnight, Lucas,” and smiles to himself, because Lucas can’t see it, and he can’t stop him, and their colours were the same. That’s got to be something.

He hears no movement for a few seconds, and then, footsteps moving round to the other side of the bed. When Lucas comes in sight, Eliott grins and closes his eyes as if he'd never had them open in the first place. 

Lucas huffs, and the bed dips as he climbs onto it. Though he doesn't open his eyes yet, Eliott doesn't fail to notice the careful distance still between their bodies, although the bed is small.

Finally, he opens his eyes, and meets Lucas’s immediately. He searches quickly for a conversation topic that isn't related to their heads on pillows facing each other, faces inches apart. 

“So who else is there?” he asks. 

“Huh?” Lucas seems to take a moment to catch up. 

“Who else has magic?” Eliott explains, lifting his hand and letting the blue swirl around in his hands. 

“Oh, right,” Lucas says. “Uh, well, I don't know most of them. There's just a couple I've seen around. And there's Alexia,” he smiles. “She's pretty hard to miss.”

“The girl with the colourful hair?”

“That's the one. Told you she was hard to miss.”

Eliott laughs. “Yeah.”

They both fall silent again. Eliott uses the time to look at Lucas. 

Lucas does the same. 

It should probably be unbearable. His magic should be getting out of control at this, objects flying everywhere, hands a blinding mess of colour, but - he just feels so calm, more in control than ever, staring into Lucas’s eyes, the same colour blue as -

Oh, right. He really should have worked that out earlier. 

He lifts his hand up to Lucas’s face, extends the glow a little. 

“It matches,” he says quietly. 

He's not sure what reaction he expects, but he gets a smile, and it's more than he could have hoped for.

“Yours does that?” Lucas asks. “I swear, mine barely matches to anything. I don't even know what it means half the time.”

“Yeah,” smiles Eliott. “Whenever I see something I like, It always matches to the colour,” He immediately worried that he's said too much, and hurried to keep talking. “Like when I was a kid, and I really wanted a red Nintendo DS, my fingers were red for, like, a year. In hindsight it actually looked kind of horrifying, like, demonic almost.”

Lucas laughs, and if Eliott had synesthesia, the colour would almost certainly be on his fingers. 

When his laugh fades a second later, Lucas reaches up, and takes Eliott’s hand, intertwining their fingers, sharing the colour between them. It brightens almost instantly, consuming their hands in the glow. 

“So you like my eyes?” Lucas asks, half teasing, half breathless. 

Eliott raises his eyebrows. “I'm pretty sure I like everything about you.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!!!!!!!!!!!  
> i'm on tumblr @evenshands  
> love always xxx


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